Currently
a fourth year doctoral student at the Oriental Institute,
University of Oxford (studying the art and archaeology of
Islamic Spain), Mariam read a Masters degree in Islamic
Art and Archaeology before starting to work on this
project. From 1997-1998 it was a full-time job, but since
beginning the doctorate, work on this project has
proceeded at a part-time pace. She has been solely
responsible for researching, writing, designing and
managing this site, as well as the related project of
producing the Teaching Video, "Making Lustre Pottery with
Alan Caiger-Smith". This has meant that a project
that should have been up and running a few years ago, is
only just now becoming available to students, but she
hopes that all the hard work pays off, and that this will
prove to be an invaluable educational resource.

Oya
Pancaroglu wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on human figural
imagery in Seljuk art - entitled A World Unto
Himself: The Rise of a New Human Image in the Late
Seljuk Period (1150-1250)" - at Harvard University
in 2000. She currently holds the Salahuddin Y H Abuljawad
Post-Doctoral Scholarship at the Oriental Institute,
Oxford University, where she is working on turning her
thesis into a book.

Katherine
Strange Burke was introduced to Islamic Archaeology in
the Islamic Art and Archaeology Masters programme at the
University of Oxford in 1997-98. She is now working
towards a Ph.D. in Islamic Archaeology at the Department of Near Eastern
Languages and Civilizations, at the University of
Chicago. She has recently decided to focus on the Mamluk
period, mainly in Syria, and is currently interested in
the movement of goods and resources around greater Syria
and between Syria and Egypt. She has excavated in Israel
and Syria, most recently at the site of Qinnasrīn in
northern Syria under the supervision of Donald Whitcomb.